Design
Commissioned in 1903, the Kniaz Potemkin Tavricheskii (Князь Потемкин Таврический)was
a first attempt by the Imperial Russian Navy to build a battleship for
the Black Sea Fleet that would be the equal of the best designs built
by rival naval powers. One of the first Russian battleships to mount
the 12-Inch/40 main gun in two twin "French style" turrets, the Kniaz Potemkin Tavricheskii had a very strong secondary battery of 16 6-Inch/45 guns.

The top speed was only 16 knots however, unremarkable by contemporary
standards, and the range was limited by the very low coal supply (1,100
tons), a consequence of the armour and armament taking so much internal
space. It was a rather
short-ranged, slow but heavily armed and protected design that was
easily superior to any ennemy battleship she could hope to encounter in
the Black Sea, the other local power with a decent navy being Turkey, a
much weaker adversary.

Interestingly, the Kniaz Potemkin Tavricheskii was seminal in the sense that her design served as a base for Charles Cramp of Philadelphia to build the Retvizan, another battleship for the Tsar's Navy. Cramp then went on to build battleships for the US Navy that bear a striking ressemblance to the Kniaz Potemkin Tavricheskii .

Operational HistoryCommissioned in 1903, the Kniaz Potemkin Tavricheskii served a long and eventful career in the Black Sea Fleet. On June 27, 1905 Kniaz Potemkin Tavricheskii was
away from the rest of the fleet for firing practice. Mutiny broke out about
rotten meat. Officers were murdered and mutineers took control of the ship. The Kniaz Potemkin Tavricheskii raised
the red flag of revolt and for the next eleven days steamed about the
Black Sea, with the fugitives finding refuge in Romania.

The battleship
arrived back in Sevastopol on August 9, 1905. Under the old Russian
calendar, the day was July 27, the day when the Orthodox Russian Church
celebrated Saint Panteleimon. The Kniaz Potemkin Tavricheskii was renamed Panteleimon(Пантелеймон). For the next twelve years she sailed under that name.

The Russian Black Sea Fleet held control of the Black Sea until 1914. Turkey had ordered two modern dreadnoughts from Great
Britain that Russia countered by laying down four modern dreadnoughts at
the yards at Nikolaiev, the same that had built Panteleimon. First
Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill had the two Turkish battleships
seized and added to the British Grand Fleet. As a result the Imperial
German battlecruiser Goeben, along with the light cruiser, Breslau,
that had been the Hochseeflotte's Mediterranean squadron,
were presented to Turkey but remained with German crews and under
German control, with Admiral Souchon in command. Goeben became Yavuz Sultan Selim and Breslau became Medilli.

The Russian Black Sea Fleet's battleship brigade consisted of five predreadnoughts, Evstafei, Ioann Zlatoust, Panteleimon, Tri Sviatitelia and the second class battleship Rostislav. The
Russians had devised a very clever system to coordinate the fire of
their three best battleships that in fact fired as a notional
Dreadnought broken into 3 components, fielding a very respectable
12 12-Inch main battery. The guns, crews and ammunition had improved
much since the disastrous Russo-Japanese was of 1904-1905, a fact
largely unnoticed by the Germans. The Russian Black Sea Fleet felt
confident that its elderly battleships could hold their own even
against the mighty Goeben, and Admiral Ebergard mounted a series of daring raids against the Turkish coast.

At the occasion of a Russian
sortie on
November 18, 1914 Goeben
met the five battleships of the battleship brigade and the rest of the
Russian squadron off Cape Sarych, twenty miles south of Yalta. In a 14
minute engagement, Goeben
demonstrated that even a powerful modern battlecruiser could not take
on five predreadnoughts together without risking critical damage.
With Goeben cut off from any yard capable of repairing her if seriously damaged, Admiral Souchon could not take that risk. Goeben was hit only once in a secondary battery and managed to inflict serious damage to the Russian flagship Evstafei. But Evstafei.'s opening salvo caused serious enough damage to convince Souchon that he could not win the day.

Panteleimon
fired many salvos during the engagement but scored no hit, nor suffered
any damage. After the battle, the whole squadron reverted to their
raiding operations against the Turkish coast. With the first of the new Russian dreadnoughts, Imperatritsa Mariya, joining the fleet at Sevastopol, the predreadnoughts took on a supporting role until the end of the war.

In February 1917 the Imperial Government collapsed and the Kerensky regime renamed Panteleimon back to Potemkin, then changed her name into Borets za Svobodu (Борец за свободу - Freedom Fighter). In
April 1918, the Germans seized the ship in Sevastopol. In December 1918, the White Russian
forces with the western allies took over Sevastopol and the remaining ships of the fleet. The
British destroyed all of the machinery on the battleships on April 25,
1919.Borets za Svobodu was slowly broken apart between 1922 and 1924.